Yes, once again he is trying his cunning ways. I had told him I had never met her. Definitely told. It is one more trick. But how to defeat him? Anger, perhaps. Yes, anger. Just as I was showing and displaying to that snake Karim.
‘Inspector, the last time you were here I was stating altogether clearly that I had never met Mrs Popatkar. Are you calling me a liar? Let me tell you, and you had better remember: H. K. Verma is not in the habit of using lies. He has devoted his entire life to the truth. To the truth, Inspector. Understand?’
‘Yes, sir, yes.’
Well, why is the fellow not going now? He has put his questions, and he has had his answers. So Thank you, sahib. Thank you. Most grateful. And off you go.
‘But, sir, excuse me, can I ask also if you were ever having any sort of dealings whatsoever with Mrs Popatkar? By letter, sir? Or by any other means even?’
He suspects something. He must do. Why is he going on and on with these questions? Mrs Popatkar this, and Mrs Popatkar that? But what can he suspect exactly? Nothing. Nothing.
And if he has found an evidence, why is he not directly coming out with it? Why is he not asking whatever it is he thinks he knows? Why is he not accusing?
‘Sir?’
‘No. No, Inspector, I was never having any dealings of any sort with Mrs Shoba Popatkar. You say she was here in Banares. Very well, I must take your word for that. But, I tell you, I never saw her here. I had no idea she had come here. I really know nothing about her. Nothing.’
Was I overdoing it? But the little tick has to be made to get out. At once. Before I am making some mistake. Out.
‘Very well, sir. I am sorry to have taken up your time, but you would understand that in a case of murder, and the murder of a lady with such a fine place in India’s history, every nook and corner must be investigated.’
‘Yes, yes.’
‘Sir, no progress is being made in Bombay itself. I was telephoning officer in charge of case, and he was saying they are no more advanced since they were arresting a servant on suspicion only. I am feeling it is up to me now, sir. Up to myself alone. That is why I have been asking and asking these questions.’
‘Very well, you are doing no more than your duty. I am quite understanding. But I am a busy man, Inspector, so if you would let me get on with my work . . .’
Make it look as if I truly am busy. What to do? Yes, go over to the table, pull out the chair, pick up a ballpoint from that jar. Let him see it. But I have nothing to write. Not even a piece-paper to write on.
Well, put the ballpoint back. I must have made him see now he is not wanted. And, yes, he is going. At last he is going.
‘Thank you, sir. I would not keep you from your work any longer. Thank you.’
‘No. Wait.’
‘Yes, sir? What it is?’
What was it the poking, prying mongoose said? It is up to myself alone. If . . . If he is truly alone, then perhaps my idea before . . .
‘Inspector, you are enjoying your stay in our beautiful city? You have been able to visit our temples? The Bharat Mata Temple is very interesting, with a relief map of our country carved in marble itself. Or the Tulsi Manas Temple, built in 1964 only. Its walls are inscribed with the verses of Sant Tulsidas himself. Very, very good.’
‘No, sir, no. I am not able to see any such. I am here on duty only.’
On the little mongoose’s face a look of disapproval. A dedicated fellow. But dedicated is dangerous. Dangerous. I must find out where he can be . . .
‘Quite so, Inspector. On duty. Very very commendable. Doing the right thing. But you have at least some decent boarding and lodging here, I trust.’
‘Oh, yes, sir. At a place called Hotel Relax. I was given its name by the former Banares officer who has been most helpful in assisting me to find my way about your city.’
‘Ah. A former police officer? So you are . . . So you share your thoughts on this matter with him? Discuss your each and every suspicion, no?’
‘Well, sir, I have not thought it proper to share my ideas about the case itself with an officer who is actually retired.’
‘No. No, I see it would be wrong to do so. Quite wrong. Good. Excellent, Inspector. Hotel Relax, you were saying? Well, I must not be keeping you. Each to his own work, yes?’
‘Yes, sir. And thank you again for your helps.’
So that badmash Rick was giving me one false clue. Nothing but deny and deny from Shri H. K. Verma. As clear as clear can be. Well, one good thing only. I will not have to go down to the Manikarnika Ghat tonight at midnight and risk my life and limb among those two-rupee killers who were turning to butter Inspector Mishra’s knees.
Yet . . .
Yet, after all, the fellow just now was . . . Was what? Yes, somehow uneasy. Too much of protest. Too much of bluster. And when I was about to leave, keeping me back at last moment with those questions. As if to butter my chapattis only. But before that, yes, it had been just the opposite, displaying very much of impatience to see me go. The way he was picking up that ballpoint, as if he had some work to do, making sure I was seeing and then dropping same. Left-over election give-aways. Vote for H. K. Verma Honesty Is Best Policy.
But honesty was not his policy up there. Definitely not. And, when I was there before even, I was, just only a little, feeling something to be wrong also.
Yet at the worst would a man like H. K. Verma truly go all the way from Banares to Bombay and strangle someone? Well, influential people have committed murder before now. No one except a saint is so right-doing that, given some special circumstances, they will at least not want to commit murder.
On the other hand . . . Perhaps after all that Rick was giving me H. K.’s name out of thin air only. It is as likely. More so even.
So – a tumbling of interior dismay – no way to get out of it. I must go to the Manikarnika Ghat tonight after all. I have to get hold of Rick once more, even if it is by offering some false informations about a raid on the Dom Raja’s house. If I am to find out who was strangling Mrs Shoba Popatkar, that is all that is left to me. Otherwise I might as well go back to Bombay. Leave matters to that follow-the-rules fellow, Wagh.
But the Manikarnika Ghat. At midnight. Where Inspector Mishra had felt his knees turn to butter.
11
Ghote had spent most of the rest of the morning out at the Banares Hindu University once more. He had decided he ought to check the truth of H. K. Verma’s statement that Mrs Popatkar had not gone to visit him by talking again to Mr Srivastava in his little, out-of-the-way library. Checking with H. K. Verma’s one-eyed peon – what was his name? Raman – would be a waste of time. Of course the fellow would confirm Mrs Popatkar had never come to the house. If in fact she had not, he would simply be telling the truth. And if, despite what H. K. Verma had insisted, she had been there that day asking to go through the Recollections, Raman would have been instructed to lie and lie.
But with Mr Srivastava it would be different. Even if H. K. Verma had telephoned him with the same instruction he had given to Raman, it should not be difficult to get past his defences. He was the sort of well-wishing academic – like some he had known in his college days – it would be child’s play to shake the truth out of.
It was. First, some casual questions. Then a few sharp words. And the old librarian was reduced to sheer willingness to babble out everything he knew. But from all his gabblings it was simply clear that Mrs Popatkar had not gone from the university to H. K. Verma. He was certain about the hour she had arrived at the library. It had been only a few minutes after he had got there himself, and he made a point of never being even five minutes late. And, yes, she had stayed, head deep in the Recollections, until she had jumped up – ‘Looking altogether triumphant, my dear sir’ – handed back the manuscript, taken a quick look at her watch and hurried off, saying she could just catch the Rajdani Express.
So, Ghote thought to himself, mooching dispiritedly past the Armed Police constable at the tall archway entrance to the un
iversity, there is one thing more only to be done. The Manikarnika Ghat. At midnight.
But, first, look at the place under the bright light of the sun.
At some distance from the ghat – he could see the haze of smoke from the pyres rising up against the sky beyond the river – he abandoned his autorickshaw to make his way down on foot. The better he knew the surroundings the better the chances in the dark of night of escaping any pursuing goondas.
But, as he paid off the rickshaw walla something just caught his eye. It was, he thought with a jolt of superstitious fear, as if he was being given a warning.
Buttoning his wallet carefully back into his trouser pocket, he read to himself the lines of poetry he had glimpsed boldly painted on the wall just beside him. Lines he had half-noticed more than once on walls in Banares.
Seeing the grinding-stone turning, turning, Kabir began to weep.
Between the two stones, not a single grain saved.
And beside them a picture. Banarasis seemed to delight in daubing their walls with these. This was of a woman working a grinding-stone, such as he had known as a boy in his village. But she was throwing into it, not grains of wheat but little human beings.
Yes, death, he thought. It comes to us all. But to some sooner than they expect. He felt in his knees something of the butter-soft feeling Mishra had spoken about.
But – he straightened his shoulders – down at the burning ghat at midnight Rick would be waiting. And in his head there might be the answer to what connection there was between H. K. Verma and Mrs Shoba Popatkar. Only through him could he hope to learn why Mrs Popatkar had died.
He marched through the busy narrow lane down towards the river and the ghat.
Still with every step death seemed to flaunt itself in his face. The goods-crammed shops to either side offered scarcely anything but the necessities of the death ceremonies. Great rolls of white cloth to be cut into the fifteen-feet lengths specified for wrapping the corpse of a man, of coloured cloth for that of a woman. Sweetmeats for the mourners. Powdered sandalwood to scatter on the pyres. Clay water-pots for the chief mourner at last to break in the fire. Long brilliant chains of marigolds for garlands, with beside them piles of sacred lotus flowers. Huge pyramids of vermilion powder for marking the forehead of the dead. Candles in little dishes to float out into the sacred river.
Then a big abandoned temple – a faded notice still saying Gentlemen Not Belonging to Hindu Religion Are Requested Not To Enter – used for the storage of stack upon stack of wood for the fires, twisted like the limbs of innumerable interlocked wrestling animals. Up on its roof coolies were loading a huge weighing-machine with more timber, pausing every now and again to see what point the big black needle on its battered old dial had reached.
He remembered something Mishra had told him, a passing particle of his outpouring of information. The standard weight of wood for an ordinary body was two hundred kilogrammes. For a fat body it was three hundred. He looked down at his own wiry form. Yes, a two-hundred kilo fellow, definitely.
His mouth tightened.
As soon as the Bombay detective had left, H. K. Verma telephoned his son. It was not an easy call to make. He was still not even sure he wanted to make it. Or needed to make it.
But best to be on the safe side.
So, first, some pleasantries.
‘You are well?’
‘Yes, yes, Pitaji. Just as well as I was when you were here yesterday itself.’
‘Yes. Well, yes. And Vikram – Vikki as he is liking to be called. That little trouble you were almost mentioning, it is all settled now?’
‘Oh, yes. Yes. No problem. Or if not quite no problem, I do not expect trouble to last too long.’
‘Good, good. Well, I am liking to know all is going well. So . . . Well . . . Ah, yes, there was one thing I had wanted to ask.’
Oh, too direct altogether. Why can I not manage the way I am able to in negotiating for the party? With Jagmohan— No, not with Jagmohan. Forget Jagmohan.
‘Yes, Pitaji?’
Impatience coming over the line as if the boy is in the room and tap-tap-tapping his foot only. The boy. He must be more than forty now, and not at all a boy.
‘Oh, I was just only wondering how you are managing at one of your mills when you are having a long-running strike.’
‘Oh, yes? And why is that interesting you just now? You were talking and talking about social upliftment when you were here. About helping the downtrodden and what-all.’
Has the boy heard something? Is it common gup in Delhi that my votes block is worthless only now? With all his contactmen there, has he learnt what has happened?
‘I am always wanting to help the downtrodden. But just now, well, I am interested in what happened when you had that strike at the Azamgarh mill last year.’
‘When we had to send in some musclemen? It had to be done, you know. No use to be a straw-wrestler only. You are not blaming me now?’
A straw-wrestler. Has he guessed already?
‘No, no. Why should I blame? I know that there are times and places when something of force is necessary. In fact . . .’
Now I will have to say it.
‘What in fact, Pitaji? I must leave for office, you know. Business does not run itself.’
‘Yes, yes, I understand. Well, tell me then. If I . . . If I was wanting some – what did you say? – some musclemen myself, where should I be going?’
‘Oh, Pitaji, too good. You are joining the real world at last.’
‘Never mind the joking. Can you tell me some names, yes or no?’
‘Oh, yes, Pitaji. If you are ready to dirty your hands. There is a wrestling pit near the Serpent Well. It goes by that name also, the Nag Kuan pit. Tell them there that you are coming from me. They will give you what-all help you are wanting. But do not be going just now. Those fellows are sleeping in the morning, not taking any of your sunrise immersions. They are not at all holy dip goers, I can tell you.’
Yet another litter going by on its way to the ghat and its ever-smoking fires, from the red shroud on it that of a woman still married. Rama nama, satya hai, Rama nama, satya hai. On and on went the hoarsely shouted chant as the bearers padded past.
It was only the sight of a Western tourist, stepping with comic haste into a doorway and standing there rigid until the funeral had gone by, that brought Ghote back to the everyday. No need to be as scared as that fellow by the fate that awaited him. Every grain, white, brown or black, must go some day between Kabir’s millstones. To nothingness. Or the next spoke on the wheel of existence. Whichever you believed. Whichever you hoped. So accept. Do not even weep like Kabir.
He stepped out, and in a minute or so was descending the wide steep steps to the Manikarnika Ghat itself. There at the steps’ foot were – he counted – three, four, five pyres. Four heaps of smouldering ash, one still brightly burning fire, flames spluttering with their anointing of ghee.
Into his mind came words he had read in his first hours in Banares. On the hoarding glimpsed from Manzoor Syed’s maze-like halevi. Don’t Play With Fire Consequences Are Dire. What was he contemplating now? Nothing else than playing with fire of the worst kind.
But, no, no going back. Dire or no dire, I must be here again at midnight. Rick will be waiting. My only hope.
He surveyed the scene.
The wide sweep of the steps and the platforms here and there on them were dotted with the big brownish rattan umbrellas of the ghatia priests. White-clad mourners sat cross-legged in front of them, receiving instruction in the rules and regulations of the funeral ceremonies. Running and dodging between, urchins chased each other, their shouts rising up. Down by the river itself ragged, white-headclothed Doms were going from pyre to pyre poking and prodding with their long iron poles. Half in the water three litters, their corpses still roped on to them, awaited their turn. A mooning white cow was attempting to gain some sustenance from one, tugging and chewing at an end of rope. At a heap of cooled ashes from
a long-extinguished pyre an old woman raked away with a twisted length of wood, suddenly stooping, pouncing and a moment later rising up with her prize, a metal bangle.
From a niche in the temple at the head of the steps a matted-haired naked sadhu jumped out, hurried on air-light bare feet down to a pyre one of the Doms had just left. He hunkered down, scrabbled up the cool ashes from the edge, smeared them over his body.
And, Ghote thought, perhaps I can use the place he has vacated. Somewhere to put myself to see what-all happens. One long careful scrutiny. Escape routes. Possible spots to meet Rick. Places where Mishra’s two-rupee murderers may hide.
He made his way quickly over and settled down to quarter systematically the whole long lines of the steps.
Parties of pilgrims on the prescribed round of the holy city’s holiest places, blessedly footsore, were arriving to complete the ritual by bathing where so many lives had ended. But at midnight none of them would be here. To use as cover from Mishra’s goondas.
But there, where that party making the pilgrimage by water is arriving, could I jump into one of those boats moored there? Cast off? Get away before some knife-wielding badmash gets to me?
Absorbed in such thoughts, oblivious of the shouts of boys, of the tang of the drifting smoke, of the hectoring ghatia priests, he hardly noticed an aged, yellow-clad sannyasin settle cross-legged on the stones just beside him.
Without any preliminary the old man began to talk.
‘I have been here in holy Kashi for thirty-five years, never leaving. You know, I had just attained my fortieth year, and had been appointed headmaster of a new school when I felt the overwhelming urge to abandon all, wife, family – my two sons were old enough to support their mother – position, everything. I cannot now say why this urge should have come upon me, but I knew at once that I could not ignore it. I made my way to Banares – I come from the South, as perhaps you are able to recognize – and there I was able to take sannyas, to watch my body, in the form of a small wheaten image, being burnt according to the ritual, as you can see the bodies of the deceased burning there below, and to live here ever afterwards in perfect tranquillity and, as you may say, happiness.’
Doing Wrong (Inspector Ghote) Page 10